Hi, I'm Clint Smith, and this is Crash Course

Black American History.

Today we’ll be discussing a hero of mine.

Somebody who used her writing, research, and

unrelenting commitment to become one of the

most important anti-lynching advocates in

American history.

We are talking about the one and the only

Mrs. Ida B Wells-Barnett.

Her anti-lynching campaign brought international

attention to the omnipresent threat of violence

plaguing Black Americans in the South—and

in other parts of the United States.

Her career would also lead her to becoming

one of the founding members of the National

Association of Colored Women and the National

Association for the Advancement of Colored

People.

Her work was invaluable in the early struggle

for Black American’s civil rights, and she

helped lay the groundwork for generations

of activists and journalists who would come

after her.

Let’s start the show.

INTRO
I want to note there will be mentions of physical

and sexual violence in this episode.

Wells was born enslaved in 1862 in Holly Springs,

Mississippi.

Wells' father, James, was involved with the

Freedmen's Aid Society and helped establish

a college for newly freed Black Americans

in Holly Springs called Shaw University.

Renamed Rust College in 1892, this school

would join the ranks of a growing number of

HBCUs (or Historically Black Colleges and

Universities) formed during this period.

On a personal note, as the child and the grandchild

and the nephew and the cousin and the husband

of people who all went to HBCUs, I can’t

begin to express how important these schools

have been to the Black community.

Places that, for years, were the only institutions

that Black people could count on for higher

education.

Given her father's work, Wells grew up around

Black folks who were trying to build a better,

more just society for her people.

But, after losing both of her parents and

one of her siblings to yellow fever, she became

the primary caregiver to her five brothers

and sisters.

Wells found herself taking care of her siblings

while also working as a teacher, AND attending

school at Rust College.

During this time, she discovered her passion

for writing.

In 1882, Wells moved to Memphis, Tennessee,

where her career as a journalist would begin.

She became co-owner of a local newspaper,

where she wrote passionate editorials and

conducted in-depth investigative work to shine

a light on the widespread acts of lynchings

in the South.

Lynching, or killing by way of mob without

a trial, became a common form of retribution

in the South as a means of administering vigilante

justice absent of due process.

These acts of violence took many forms, perhaps

most infamously hanging a person from a tree.

These acts were designed to inspire fear and

were used as an intimidation tactic against

African Americans to assert social, political

and economic control.

And unfortunately, Black Americans in the

South had to live with the looming threat
that such violence could happen to them or
their family at any moment.

It’s important to remember also that this

history wasn’t that long ago.

In my own book, How the Word Is Passed, I

describe how my own grandfather, born in 1930

Mississippi, told me a story of how when he

was a boy, a Black man in his small town of

just 1000 people, was kidnapped by night-riders,

hung from a tree, and castrated.

And this sort of thing was happening all across

the South.

Lynchings could and often did take place,

without the victim having been charged with

any sort of crime.

And even if someone had been charged with

a crime, a vigilante mob kidnapping someone

in the middle of the night and killing them,

is not justice, no matter what the accusation

is.

As you can imagine, people were scared.

To speak out against lynching would put a

target on your back.

And what’s remarkable about Ida B. Wells

is that she knew this, and did it anyway.

And while Wells was brave, she was also strategic.

Wells’ editorials and investigative reporting

angered local whites.

And while she wanted to make waves, she understood

that to be effective, she needed to stay alive,

so she published many articles in Black newspapers

and periodicals under the moniker "Iola"

Lynching was not the only cause Ida B Wells

took a stand against.

She also sued the Chesapeake and Ohio Railroad

Company for discrimination.

As the story goes, she purchased a first-class

train ticket for a ride from Memphis to Woodstock,
Tennessee.

But the train crew ordered her to move to

the car reserved for African Americans.

But Wells did not leave the first-class car

voluntarily.

The conductor, and some passengers, forcibly

removed her and then kicked her off the train.

She won a $500 settlement in a circuit court

case; but, the decision was later overturned

by the Tennessee Supreme Court in 1887.

Following this train situation, Wells became

even more impassioned to combat discrimination

against Black Americans in all areas.

For example while working as a journalist,

Wells became a teacher at a segregated public

school in Memphis, Tennessee.

That first-hand experience led her to begin

writing about educational inequality, and

this time under her own name.

As a result, in 1891, after publicly criticizing

the lack of resources for Black-only schools

in the area, she was fired.

The following year, her efforts as a journalist

refocused on the lynching problem in the South

after she lost three of her friends.

Calvin McDowell, Thomas Moss, and Will Stewart

owned a store called The People's Grocery

in Memphis.

The presence of this moderately successful

Black-owned business sparked anger and unrest

among the local white community.

Many store owners even complained that these

men were taking some of their customers.

On March 3, 1892, a group of white men, including

a sheriff’s deputy, went to the People’s

Grocery to confront McDowell, Moss, and Stewart.

This led to an altercation, and by the time
it was over, some of the white men had been

injured.

As a result, McDowell, Moss, and Stewart were

arrested.

And some Memphis newspapers referred to the

men’s efforts to defend themselves and their

store as an armed rebellion by the Black men

in Memphis.

Just a few days later, at 2:30 in the morning,

a mob of 75 masked men broke into the jail

and kidnapped McDowell, Moss, and Stewart.

They were brought to the edge of the town

and they were lynched.

In the aftermath of the tragedy, Wells launched

an extensive investigation on lynching and

used her publications to openly denounce the

practice.

Her articles led to her newspaper being destroyed

by a mob while she was out of town, and, in

an act of cruel irony, she was threatened

with lynching should she return.

She traversed the southern states for two

months to gather information on other acts

of lynching.

And in October of 1892, she published a pamphlet

entitled "Southern Horrors," which detailed

all of her findings.

Wells stayed in the North and never returned

to Memphis.

But that did not keep her from writing about

the horrors of lynching in the South.

Wells also took her research and anti-lynching

campaign across the Atlantic, specifically

to Great Britain during the 1890s.

She helped establish the British Anti-Lynching

Society in 1894.
And her work on the trans-Atlantic anti-lynching
circuit demonstrates the ways African American

women activists internationalized social justice

work.

This built on the work of earlier abolitionists

like Frederick Douglass and William Wells

Brown who also traveled to England to promote

the abolitionist cause.

In 1895, Wells published The Red Record, which

outlined the horrors of lynching to a northern

audience whom Wells did not think was fully

aware of everything that was going on in the

South, writing that thousands of Black people

had “been killed in cold blood...without

the formality of judicial trial and legal

execution.”

She also used the pamphlet to challeng the

"rape myth" that whites used to justify the

lynching of African American men.

See, a significant component of the culture

of lynching was the idea of protecting white

womanhood from Black men who were stereotyped

as being oversexulized and always waiting

for their chance to sexually attack a white

woman.

Countless Black men were lynched after being

wrongfully accused of raping, assaulting,

eyeing, or even speaking to a white woman.

Wells' research, however, revealed that many

victims of lynchings had not committed any

crimes at all; but had rather challenged white

supremacy.

Challenging white supremacy could include

anything from being a Black person simply

leading a successful life as a business owner,

to refusing to cross the street when passing

a white person.

According to the Equal Justice Initiative,

more than 4000 Black Americans were lynched
in the South alone, between 1877 and 1950.

And this is only the numbers that we know,

there is every reason to believe that the

numbers could be even higher than that.

Wells had completed much of her life's work

before marrying in 1895, to an attorney and

newspaper editor Ferdinand L. Barnett.

The couple would have four children.

Still, even after starting a family, Wells

believed the work was not done.

In 1896, Wells was among the founding members

of the National Association of Colored Women.

The founding convention was held in Washington,

DC and other founding members included Harriet

Tubman, Frances EW Harper, and Mary Church

Terrell.

And I don’t know about y’all but that’s

basically like the Avengers.

And she kept going.

In 1898, Wells took her anti-lynching campaign

to the White House.

She led a protest in Washington, D.C., calling

for President William McKinley to make reforms.

And she called for President Woodrow Wilson

to end discriminatory hiring practices in

government jobs.

And throughout the remainder of her life,

she was incredibly active in the fight for

women’s suffrage.

A determined woman in every respect, Ida B.

Wells is one of America's greatest heroes.

She had the determination and the bravery

required to stand up against one of the darkest

elements of America's past and in many ways

helped lay the groundwork for both the civil

rights movement of the mid 20th century and

the Black Lives Matter Movement of today.
Her life's work was dedicated to stopping
the unjust murdering of Black Americans in

the South, a practice that, due to the widespread,

profoundly entrenched influence of the Klan,

was often protected by law enforcement and

legal policies.

Wells died of kidney disease on March 25,

1931, at the age of 68, in Chicago, Illinois.

Her legacy is a remarkable one.

She did so much, for so many.

And used her gifts and determination, to help

build a better world.

Thanks for watching.

I'll see you next time.

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